


Tonight when I came home from work

by The_Snarkivist



Series: Songs to Stories [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Melancholy, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27986064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Snarkivist/pseuds/The_Snarkivist
Summary: Jack comforts Ianto
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Series: Songs to Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2062575
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	Tonight when I came home from work

**Author's Note:**

> I have been listening to "Tonight" by Sibylle Baier a lot during the pandemic and it inspired this. Some of the phrasing is weird which is me trying to shoehorn in phrases from the song. There are quotes from the song in this.

Ianto turned the key in the lock of his apartment door. He sighed as he hung up his coat, his shoulders aching. 

His back smarted as he bent to untie and remove his shoes. Everything hurt. Again.

He padded to the kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks in the doorway. 

"Jack?" He, unforseen sat in the kitchen, eating a piece of buttered bread. 

“I let myself in.” He held up his Vortex Manipulator. 

"You didn't think I was going to let you be alone tonight after the day we had. The week we had. The month we had..." Jack said gently.

“It’s Torchwood.” Ianto replied.

“I know.” Jack said sadly. Then repeated almost inaudibly, “I know.” 

Jack stood then and offered Ianto his chair. It was the faded blue one that was Ianto’s favourite. 

Ianto sat with a sigh. “Can you play something? Something gentle?” Ianto asked. 

Jack nodded and pressed some buttons on his Vortex Manipulator. 

Ianto leaned his head back and closed his eyes and focused on the soft guitar. Jack came behind him and began to massage his shoulders. When the song ended, Jack looked down at Ianto, his eyes full of love.

“Ianto? What’s that sorrow you bear?” Jack asked, almost a whisper. 

“It’s hard Jack. I keep going everyday. I keep getting up and going to work. But tonight... And there’s all that death. Sometimes it's poor aliens who never hurt anyone, sometimes it's scared aliens who kill to escape. Sometimes it's humans who get caught in between. And sometimes it's us doing the dying. So tonight… I get up, I go to work. My heart breaks. And I come home. Tonight… There’s so much suffering. Tonight… Tonight, it’s too much.” 

Jack moved a hand from Ianto’s shoulder to his arm and gently wrapped his slender fingers around it, encouraging Ianto to stand.

“Let’s go to bed.” Jack said, his voice full of love and sadness. 

Ianto nodded and followed Jack to the bedroom. They both slowly took off their clothes, as if slipping out of the day, leaving the danger and the pain folded neatly on the chair near the bed. 

Ianto slid under the covers, holding them up for Jack to join. The full moon shone into the bedroom, casting light and shadows. 

Jack climbed in and pulled Ianto into his arms. He held him, his hand stroking the younger man’s back, feeling his vertebrae that stuck out too far. Too much worry and pain and death had robbed him of his appetite and he had grown skinny. 

Jack’s heart was filled to the brim. He loved the warm breath that Ianto breathed onto his chest. The way Ianto’s hand instinctively moved to Jack’s heart and how his thumb rubbed idly back and forth over the flesh that covered Jack’s beating muscle calmed him.

Jack felt moisture on his shoulder where Ianto’s head lay. He was crying. Jack moved his free hand to Ianto’s check and smoothed a tear away with his thumb. 

“Tell me…” he cooed to Ianto. “Tell me your sorrows. Tonight…. It’s just me and you and this changing moon. Tell me, love.” 

Ianto sighed and with a voice tinged with sorrow he spoke. He told Jack about the way he couldn’t put it all in an archival box and forget it. How the deaths stayed with him and crept into his dreams like thieves in the night, stealing his sleep. How the pain was unbearable at times. How sometimes when he thought of all the people in his life that he had known, had loved, so many more of them were dead than living. How he hid it all with a sharp tongue and the roll of an eye. But how it got to him. How the pain built up until it was almost too much. 

Jack listened and he understood. He smoothed Ianto’s tears away, or later he put his hand so gently under Ianto’s chin and moved his head up, then leaned down and kissed Ianto’s forehead. Then he kissed away his tears. Jack marvelled at how Ianto’s blue eyes, wet with tears, shone in the moonlight. 

They talked and talked. Ianto told him his secrets, his hidden pains, his fears. And Jack listened and understood and held him close, and cherished his heartbeat. 

And then as the light of the moon turned into the grey half light of dawn, they both slipped into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I would love to hear what you think.
> 
> This is the song if you don't know it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY_F0mPq7ec


End file.
